VICTORIA — For what was billed as the last big fundraiser for the New Democratic Party before formal commencement of the 2017 election campaign, Opposition leader John Horgan launched the proceedings on an apologetic note.

“I give you my absolute assurance that I won’t be taking a lot of your time this evening,” Horgan assured the crowd of 550 or so gathered at a Vancouver hotel Thursday evening. “I would rather be watching the Canucks tonight and I know you would as well.”

No need to add that he would sooner be doing anything, anywhere else. He and his supporters have made denunciations of such fundraisers a centrepiece of their election strategy, even as they continue, however reluctantly, to play the game.

By way of consolation, Horgan assured the night’s paying customers that if the final phase of the campaign starting April 11 plays out the way he hopes, then Thursday’s event would be the last of its kind.

“I am going to invite you to a really big party in Victoria,” Horgan declared, looking forward to the NDP winning enough seats to form a majority government May 9.

Given Horgan’s vow to outlaw big ticket fundraising altogether, that would be “the end of big money politics in B.C. and you won’t have to come out on a Thursday night like this.”

Rather than having to cosy up to the would-be premier and potential cabinet ministers at a fundraiser, interest groups and individuals could henceforth simply ask for a meeting during normal office hours.

“You book an appointment and you sit down and you talk about your challenges, your hopes and your aspirations — that’s what I want=.”

Otherwise, those who paid a range of prices for access to Thursday’s events — $350 for early birds, $475 for later arrivals and up to $10,000 for a reserved seating table – got what Horgan himself described as a “short” and “succinct” speech.

Bare bones more like it. Stephanie Ip of Postmedia attended the event and her tape of the full speech, which she provided to me this week, ran just over 10 minutes, including greetings.

The meat of it reiterated “three simple commitments” that will figure prominently in the positive side of the NDP campaign.

One: “I want to make life more affordable for British Columbians.” He means reining in the increases in medical service plan premiums and B.C. Hydro and ICBC rates under Liberals. Plus doing something to make housing more affordable.

Two: “Ensuring that the services that you and your family need are there for you when you need them.” Lengthy waiting lists for hip and knee replacements and other elective surgery rank high on Horgan’s list of concerns, as does “hallway medicine” and the chronic underfunding of education.

Three: “To build an economy that includes everybody.” Meaning well-paying jobs for the long term, not part-time jobs, not temporary jobs. And “getting the maximum amount of value” from provincial resources, including forest products, minerals and natural gas.

Details? Those await the release of the party platform, expected in the second week of April.

Horgan wrapped by noting how he and his wife Ellie have “lived in the same little house “ in a Victoria suburb for 25 years, a fleeting reference that did nothing to challenge his reputation as an intensely private man who is loath to traffic in personal details to make political points.

That’s unlike Premier Christy Clark, who rarely misses the opportunity to riff on her family background and son Hamish. Nor is Clark inclined to skimp on time, details and engagement with the crowd, as Horgan did in his intended-to-be-last address to a campaign fundraiser.

Clark’s final turn on the fundraising circuit before the election is her annual leader’s dinner, set for April 10 in Vancouver, the evening before she is scheduled to visit Lt.-Gov. Judith Guichon to request dissolution of the legislature for the election.

If past practice is any guide, Clark’s dinner will outgross Horgan’s by a considerable margin and her presentation will be anything but apologetic. Her lack of shame over cash for access fundraising has become one of the distinguishing characteristics of her time in office.

It has also provided the New Democrats and Horgan with an opening big enough — they hope — to disrupt the voting patterns of the last decade and a half.

The last three provincial elections produced almost identical outcomes. The New Democrats finished about four points behind the B.C. Liberals in the popular vote and 14 MLAs or so behind in the seat count.

In each of those campaigns, the NDP platform was similar to the three themes that Horgan outlined to last week’s fundraiser. He and his crew are hinting at something bolder this time, particularly on spending and deficits.

But the potential game changer, as they see it, is the one he emphasized last week.

“I am so proud to be part of a room tonight that is focused on one thing and one thing only: Ending big money in politics. … Big money has distorted our politics and how we look at ourselves and how people look at us.”

That in turn plays to a related theme of a government grown decrepit and arrogant after 16 years in office, much in need of a period of reflection in the Opposition benches that New Democrats would be happy to vacate.

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